1. Field of Art
The disclosure generally relates to a scripting engine for networking devices, and more specifically, to providing a scripting engine that enables an administrator to configure high performance networking devices with dynamic parameters.
2. Description of the Related Art
A scripting engine allows a programmer to program and change the run-time characteristics of a platform without custom software release with long development cycles. Existing scripting engines come in two forms, interpreted and compiled. Interpreted scripting engines interpret scripts at runtime and thus, often suffer from performance constraints. For example, interpreted scripting engines are not useful in a high-traffic server that handles thousands of connections per second.
One the other hand, compiled scripting engines may offer better performance, but the scripts must be compiled into native or byte code prior to execution time. Hence, the compiled scripting engines lack the flexibility to update the scripts without recompiling the entire program, which may be inconvenient for situations where dynamic configurations and frequent updates are required.